In case you missed it, this week was Healthcare Technology Management week. Highlights of the week’s festivities included:
-Educational offerings, covering topics such as medical device supportability and interdepartmental collaboration, and alarm management.
-Erlanger Health Systems from Chattanooga, Tenn, was named the group that celebrated the week best. The team set up a diplay in the hospital that showed the history of medical equipment. The group even brought a few old, dusty pieces of equipment back to life.
-In addition to national organizations and companies, more than a dozen biomed associations signed on as supporting partners in the annual celebration including: The Bay Area Association of Medical Instrumentation , Biomedical Associations of Wisconsin, Biomedical Engineering Society of Texas, California Medical Instrumentation Association, Colorado Association of Biomedical Equipment Technicians, East Tennessee Biomedical Association, Florida Biomedical Society, Gateway Biomedical Society, Georgia Biomedical Instrumentation Society, Heartland Biomedical Association, Indiana Biomedical Society, Intermountain Clinical Instrumentation Society, Mid-Eastern Pennsylvania Clinical Engineering Society, North Texas Biomedical Association, South Florida Association for Medical Instrumentation, and Washington State Biomedical Association.
– Members of the clinical engineering department at Archbold Medical Center in Thomasville, Ga, won the Bright Ideas Award from AAMI for their partnership with nearby Southwest Georgia Technical College (SWGTC) to solve a staffing shortage. The team joined forces with human resources to conduct a formal market survey based on new requirements for education, experience, and certifications for biomedical technicians. It developed its ideal HTM candidate profile and turned to SWGTC, which previously had worked with other Archbold departments, to develop a new biomedical technology program at the college. The program offered credit for practical, nontraditional experience and previously taken coursework. More than 20 interns have participated in the program, and Archbold has slashed costs by not having to pay consultants or staff overtime.
-Leslie Carroll and Edward Ryan were selected as the AAMI Foundation’s Michael J. Miller Scholarship 2013 winners. Carroll, a mother of four daughters, currently is enrolled at the Texas State Technical College. She discovered the HTM field after reviewing a list of potential majors and finding herself intrigued by the biomedical equipment technology field. Ryan is studying clinical engineering at the University of Connecticut and interning at Hartford Hospital, where he has worked on a variety of projects—from centralizing the facility’s telemetry system to replacing a large portion of the MedSurg bed fleet.
